


Now Shall I Sing the Second Kingdom

by Siria



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25824898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: In which Nicky and Copley have a conversation.
Comments: 42
Kudos: 246





	Now Shall I Sing the Second Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Cate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon) for audiencing.

For a house with five people in it, Copley's home is oddly quiet. That's not much of a surprise. He spent two hours yesterday on his hands and knees with a damp cloth and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, working to get Andy's blood out of his carpet. The real surprise would be if the house were full of laughter and conversation.

Well, no, Copley admits to himself, standing in the kitchen and watching the kettle boil. No, the real surprise is that they're here at all.

The kettle boils. Copley waits for a few minutes until the steam ebbs away, and then he flicks the switch to start the water heating all over again. He should make tea, he knows, or there's some ageing coffee stashed at the back of some cabinet or other. That's what a good host does for his house guests. For now, he just stands and watches the kettle boil.

Copley hears someone clear their throat, and looks over to find Nicky standing in the doorway.

"I haven't heard back yet," Copley says, nodding over at his phone where it sits on the kitchen table, screen dark. Despite his connections, four clean passports aren't quick or cheap to get these days. It'll take another few hours to get a notification that a courier is on their way, and even then the passports will only be enough to get them across the Channel and into the Schengen Zone. Better to go to ground there, with some freedom of movement, until Copley can get them a set of identities with biometrics secure enough to withstand more than a glancing inspection. 

"Okay," Nicky says softly. Of all of them, he had been the most difficult for Copley to get a handle on when he was researching. He's the kind of man whom it is easy to overlook, if you hadn't ever met his eyes directly.

Or if you hadn't seen certain video footage.

"Painkillers?" Nicky asks, shrugging. "She won't take them, but."

Copley remembers what that was like: the continual compulsion to do something, anything, however small, to help, and knowing that she'd be too bloody stubborn to ever accept it because she was _fine, James, honestly_. "Down the hallway to your left, second door. Cabinet over the sink."

Nicky nods his thanks and makes to leave. It's Copley's turn to clear his throat.

"I've wondered," Copley says. "Do you... do you remember anything? From the times when you're..." Copley isn't a fan of euphemism as a general rule, but he can't think of a way to put it that isn't offensively blunt.

"Dead?"

Copley's concerns about etiquette are clearly misplaced. Though perhaps he should admit to himself that they're tinged with more than a little hypocrisy. After all, how many times has he watched and rewatched the footage from South Sudan, trying to see if he can pinpoint the exact time stamp when Nicky goes from person to corpse and back to a person again? He can think of few moments in a life that are more intimate, more blunt.

He remembers holding Lynette's hand in his, and waiting for the next awful, laborious breath, and then the realisation that it was never, ever going to come.

Copley presses that memory down and says, "Yes."

Nicky looks at the floor for a long moment. Next to Copley, the kettle comes to a boil and clicks off again. Then Nicky looks back up at him, and the light in his eyes is bright and brittle.

"I have read many things on this topic over the centuries," Nicky says, speaking slowly, as if choosing his words with surpassing care. "The Church Fathers debated it a great deal, and countless others after them. What does happen to the soul between the death of the body and the resurrection into the world to come? Do the souls of those who die _in fide Christi_ purify themselves in purgatorial fire or do they sleep until the Day of Judgement? Are those who die holding the martyr's palm granted immediate entrance to the New Jerusalem? I think..."

Copley finds that he is holding his breath, waiting for whatever Nicky will say next. 

"I think, Mr Copley," Nicky says, "that you have forfeited the right to ask me that question."

Copley deserves that. He knows he does. But the gentleness with which Nicky speaks, his tone of quiet reason, is still enough to have him leaning against the kitchen counter, no longer sure if his knees can support his own weight.

"But also I believe," Nicky continues, "that any answer I could give you right now would neither reflect well on me or be very much to your liking. Thank you for the painkillers." He walks off down the hallway on silent feet.

Copley hears the bathroom door open and close, a brief murmur of conversation from the living room, and then the house falls quiet again. How could you ever prove the existence of purgatory, he wonders—save perhaps through knowing a soul's willingness to undergo penance.

He flicks the kettle on again.


End file.
